David Sommerstein
David Sommerstein, a contributor from North Country Public Radio (NCPR), has covered the St. Lawrence Valley, Thousand Islands, Watertown, Fort Drum and Tug Hill regions since 2000. Sommerstein has reported extensively on agriculture in New York State, Fort Drum’s engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the lives of undocumented Latino immigrants on area dairy farms. He’s won numerous national and regional awards for his reporting from the Associated Press, the Public Radio News Directors Association, and the Radio-Television News Directors Association. He's regularly featured on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Only a Game, and PRI’s The World.
Sommerstein started his career in radio as a sit-in jazz and Latin DJ at Buffalo NPR affiliate WBFO. He’s a huge baseball fan, speaks fluent Spanish, and hosts a bilingual music show featuring funk, hip hop, Latin and world beats, called The Beat Authority.
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The Buffalo Bills returned to the football field Sunday with an emotional game against the New England Patriots. It's the first time the Bills played since safety Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest.
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Lake sturgeon have been around since the dinosaurs, and they can live as long as humans, or longer. Overfishing and pollution has decimated populations, but biologists are learning to help them breed.
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Dairy farmers rely on thousands of immigrants, most of them undocumented, to milk the cows. They fear Trump administration policies will cause their labor pool to dry up.
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Biomass was rising a decade ago as a carbon-neutral energy. But the industry is sputtering as oil and natural gas booms, and some scientists are questioning if it's actually good for the environment. -
The Onondaga Nation, a Native American tribe in New York, is hosting the world indoor lacrosse championship. It's the first time an indigenous sovereign territory has hosted a major sports tournament.
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Val James became the first American-born black player in the NHL in 1982. He faced vicious racism, including fans throwing bananas on the ice. After 30 years in silence, he is talking about it now.
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Beat Nation is a traveling art exhibition that mines the similarities between hip-hop and indigenous culture. It's made a big splash in Canada, where indigenous protest movements have recently captured headlines. -
Soldiers at Fort Drum in Watertown, N.Y., say they are not surprised by the news that more of them will be deploying to Afghanistan. Most of them seem resigned to spending more time in combat, but they say it will be hard on their families.
